


I Can See What's Coming

by insatiablerealist



Series: California [1]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 09:17:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5738068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insatiablerealist/pseuds/insatiablerealist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is rumored to be running in Horton Wilde’s place in the California 47th and Josh isn’t happy about it.</p>
<p>Slight rewrite of “Process Stories” from Josh’s point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can See What's Coming

“Wilde won?!"

“What the hell.” Toby stared at the TV in CJ’s office, dumbstruck.

“A dead guy won a congressional election!” Josh shouted. “A dead Democrat won Orange County!”

“I-I don’t understand, is this the first sign of the apocalypse?” Toby muttered, getting up and pacing. CJ was still sitting behind her desk, too surprised to speak.

“Are you kidding, this is amazing! Where’s Sam, he’s gonna love this.” Josh jumped to his feet, heading for the door.

“Wait a minute, they might know who’s running in Wilde’s place in the special election,” CJ called.

“Who cares?” Josh shot back.

“No, Josh, I think you’re gonna want to see this.” She sounded concerned enough that Josh turned back just in time to see Sam’s face fill the screen. He froze.

“Sam Seaborn has been an integral part of the president’s inner circle since joining the Bartlet campaign,” the anchorwoman said.   
  
“I’m sorry, did she just say Sam Seaborn? _My_ deputy? I’m gonna kill him.” Toby fell back onto CJ’s couch.  
  
Josh found his way back to the chair he’d been sitting in before and sank into it without really noticing what he was doing. Of all the people in the world, why did _Sam_ have to get involved?

“Maybe it really is just a rumor. He can’t be that stupid, can he?” CJ asked, but she sounded pretty doubtful.

“Oh, yes, he can,” Toby replied.

Josh was still speechless. Somehow he knew this wasn’t a mistake. For some unfathomable reason, Sam really had agreed to this. CJ and Toby only seemed to be surprised and even amused, but Josh felt as though the world had turned upside down and he couldn’t really say why.

Sam himself slipped into the room before Josh could come up with anything useful to say. When CJ and Toby cornered him, he lit into one of his nervous rants, this one involving a widow and someone named Will Bailey and Aristotle, somehow, but Josh could barely keep track of it, because his mind was still stuck on an endless litany of _Sam’s leaving._ Which didn’t really make sense because Sam hadn’t even said he was really doing this, but why wouldn’t he? Sam never went back on his word, and this time he had a whole national television audience to hold him to it.  
  
Before he knew it, Sam was going to the residence to tell the president, and Josh found himself wandering back to his office, still in a daze. Sam had offered to run for Congress. Sam would be leaving the White House. Sam, who had been by Josh’s side constantly as long as either of them had known who Bartlet was, would be off campaigning in California before they knew it.  
  
Donna stopped in to see what he knew, but he didn’t keep track of their conversation any better than the one in CJ’s office. Some time after she disappeared back into the party, Josh started at the sound of someone knocking his open door, and he realized that he’d been staring at the same spot on his desk for at least five minutes. Sam was standing in the doorway, looking unsure of whether he should come in or stay where he was. Josh stood up and registered that he still couldn’t think of a single thing to say.  
  
“I told the president,” Sam began.

“Yeah.” He walked around his desk to lean back on the other side of it.

“I should have told you. Before it was announced.”  
  
Josh shrugged, then remembered something. “Did you tell Donna earlier?”

“That just sort of . . . happened.” Sam shifted guiltily.

“This whole thing just sort of happened,” Josh scoffed. 

Sam stepped inside to lean against the wall. Josh noticed how tired he looked. It made sense, of course; they were all wiped out from the election and it was only the adrenaline from the victory keeping them on their feet. But Sam looked much more exhausted than he had an hour ago. “Are you going to yell at me?” he asked softly. “Because Toby did that in the hall a minute ago.”

“No, Sam, I’m not going to yell at you. Even if I do think only you could be ridiculous enough to get into this mess.” Josh sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re gonna run.”

“What?”

“You’re gonna do it. There’s no chance you’ll back out.”

Sam started to laugh, then shook his head. “What do you mean? I haven’t decided anything yet.”

“Well, for one thing, you made some sappy promise to a grieving widow and you wouldn't disappoint her if your life depended on it. But aside from that,” Josh made himself slow down and take a breath. “You’ve always been slated for something bigger than speechwriting.”  
  
“I _like_ speechwriting,” Sam pointed out, staring at the floor.

“You’d like making laws. Actually getting to vote on them instead of just asking for votes.”

Sam smiled, still seeming unhappy. “Yeah, I would. But I wouldn’t be working here anymore.” He met Josh’s gaze intently, and for a moment Josh thought Sam was looking at him longingly. “Can you imagine me leaving?”

“I always knew you’d run for something. State legislature or Congress or something,” Josh mumbled, trying to sound more comfortable with that thought than he was.

“Come on, honestly.”

Josh paused. He pushed himself off his desk and stood up straight. “I didn’t think you’d leave before the rest of us,” he said at last.

“Me neither.”  
  
“I thought we’d finish the Bartlet Administration together. You and me.”

“Yeah.” There was no brushing it off as wishful thinking on Josh’s part; Sam was looking at Josh more wistfully than he had any right to.  
  
More than anything, Josh wanted to tell him to stay. Tell him to forget the election, tell him he belonged right here in the West Wing and nowhere else. But he knew he couldn’t hold Sam back like that. “You’re still gonna run.”

“I’m gonna lose,” Sam sighed. “We seem to have forgotten we’re talking about the California 47th here.”  
  
“You never know.”

Sam snorted. “With Orange County? Seriously?”  
  
“Look, if some guy who’s been dead for three weeks can get elected—”  
  
“All right, all right.” Sam laughed, or at least he gave a more genuine smile than he had since he walked into CJ’s office.

“You can run a good campaign. Promise me you won’t blow this off, you’ll actually stand up for everything you believe in, right?”

“I wouldn’t do it any other way.”

“I know,” Josh murmured. That was why he had been so sure Sam was running from the moment he saw it on TV. There was no one who would be better for this than Sam. Josh couldn't not encourage him to actually go through with this, even if all he wanted was for Sam to stay here.

“It’s not like I’ll never see you again,” Sam said as though he was reading Josh’s mind. “I’d probably go back and forth between California and D.C., at least at first.”

“Yeah?”

“And we have these things called telephones?”

“Okay.” He rolled his eyes, and that got Sam to laugh. 

 “After the campaign, if I win, I’m back in Washington, just in a different building. And if I don’t, which is the only likely outcome, really, then I’ll come right back here.”  
  
The way Sam explained everything, it sounded so simple. Josh wished he could have Sam’s easy confidence, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was ending in this exact moment.

“Well.” He felt like he should be saying something more important. There had to be some way to let Sam know how much he cared about him without saying something they would both regret later. “I’ll miss having you around, no matter what.” That wasn’t very important at all, but it would have to do.  
  
He leaned over to pat Sam’s shoulder but got pulled into a hug instead. Sam held onto him much tighter than Josh expected, so suddenly his face was pressed against Sam’s neck and he never wanted to move.

It was Sam who pulled back eventually, but he stayed standing closer than he probably should have, hands resting on Josh’s arms. “Thank you,” he whispered, giving Josh that uniquely Sam Seaborn look that expressed some weird level of affection reserved for his closest friends in moments when he couldn’t put into words what he wanted to say to them.

“‘Thank you’ for what?” Josh asked, genuinely confused.

“For not yelling at me. For telling me to run. Everyone else around here isn’t missing this opportunity to question every decision I’ve ever made.”

“I didn’t say you _should_ run, I said you’re going to and I couldn’t stop you if I tried,” Josh muttered. He didn’t want to be held accountable for pushing Sam away. “There’s a difference.”

“Still. It meant a lot to me.”  
  
Josh tried to smile, but he figured he probably looked miserable. “You’re gonna do great things, Sam. You already have, but now everyone’s gonna see you.”

Sam’s eyes darted down, and for one terrifying second Josh thought he might kiss him, and then they would have to finally address this _thing_ that had been floating between them for as long as Josh could remember. But Sam just gave him the look again, clapped him on the shoulder, and walked out of the office. Josh stood glued to the spot, his eyes squeezed shut. They couldn’t ever do anything, if Sam even felt the same way. He knew that.

But he also knew, despite Sam’s reassurances, that no matter what happened in Orange County, Sam wouldn’t come back to the West Wing, and Josh would miss him more than he could bear.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted this to be 100% canon compliant, but it doesn't fit completely because Amy is the first person to say Sam should run, but I think Josh would have more to say about it than anyone else. Also the line that the TV anchor says about Sam is taken directly from the episode.
> 
> The title is from Midnight Coward by Stars.


End file.
